Allied Newspapers' board of directors this evening affirmed their full confidence in board member Louis Farrugia after his name featured in the leaked Panama Papers database. 

Mr Farrugia had opened a Panama company in 1984 and dissolved it in 2005. In a statement issued last week, Mr Farrugia had said that the firm had been declared to the Central Bank and was intended to house a UK property.

"I do not own any shares in any overseas company nor have any beneficial interest in any overseas trust," Mr Farrugia had added. 

The Allied Newspapers board noted that the company in question had been dissolved in 2005 - six years before Mr Farrugia joined the Allied Newspapers board - and that the Central Bank knew of it.

"The board condemns the malicious and completely unfounded allegations of double standards and false claims made in yesterday’s media," it said. 

Allied Newspapers is the publisher of Times of Malta.